Some NWT communities battle extreme cold even by northern standards

Norman Wells has recorded temperatures below -45C for each of the last three days, dropping to -47C without wind on Tuesday and a wind chill value of -55.

The town is among nine NWT communities under yellow warnings from Environment Canada for extreme cold. The others are Aklavik, Colville Lake, Délı̨nę, Fort Good Hope, Inuvik, Tsiigehtchic, Tulita and Wrigley.

NWT residents are used to extreme cold, but lows of -47C without wind chill are at the bottom end of the spectrum even for the North. (Days where the temperature drops below -50C, which used to happen, are now almost vanishingly rare.)

In Norman Wells, a house fire over the weekend – as the worst of the cold enveloped the Sahtu region – complicated matters for residents, some of whom lost power for up to half a day.

The town’s mayor, Frank Pope, told Cabin Radio that while the NWT Power Corporation flew in a technician to help, the town is “in a really bad situation” with no on-site engineering presence.

Despite the harsh conditions, he said fire department volunteers did an “excellent job” responding ot the fire.

Pope said a contractor is helping to fix frozen housing units and another is thawing out sewage systems.

“A big shoutout to contractors and individuals who helped out and are still helping during these tough times,” he said.

“It looks like temperatures may warm up at the weekend all the way up to -25C. Folks pulled together where they could. Thank you, Norman Wells.”

Cost of ‘a living temperature’

Bryson Rogers, who lives in Norman Wells, said the extreme cold has been affecting people’s motivation – including his own, making it difficult to get out of bed or go to work.

In temperatures below -40C, keeping vehicles running becomes a challenge. Rogers described spending more than an hour boosting his car before it started. Even then, he said, it barely ran, requiring careful and slow handling.

Heating costs add to the challenge, he said, in a community that has recently faced multiple cost-of-living crises.

“Lots of people don’t have wood stoves and have to pay thousands of dollars a month to keep their house a living temperature,” said Rogers.

“If they don’t pay these prices, their pipes will freeze and things will break, so it’s not really an option.”

Rogers said he feels “monopolized” by the local fuel supplier because there isn’t an alternative. SRP Petroleum, the supplier, said it wasn’t in a position to immediately comment on Tuesday afternoon but expected to provide comment later.

Inuvik school still open in -44C

In Inuvik, where the temperature was -44C on Tuesday, East Three Elementary School remained open but told parents to use their discretion.

In a notice posted online, the school said regional policy dictates that facilitie remain open and “parents, not the school, shall determine whether or not the temperature is too extreme to send their children.”

However, the cold was too much for Inuvik’s swimming pool, which closed for the remainder of the week due to “challenges maintaining water and air temperatures to operational standards.”

Mayor of Inuvik Peter Clarkson said the town was covered in an ice fog as temperatures dropped below -40C. Municipal staff, he said, are focused on ensuring the main utilidor – the above-ground network of service pipes in a community built on permafrost – does not freeze.

Christy Climenhaga, a former CBC North meteorologist who nows works at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the territory had a warm fall that has quickly flipped into a bitterly cold winter.

In Yellowknife, Climenhaga said, the average temperature last month was -28.2C, well below the normal December average of -21.8C, making it the city’s 10th-coldest December on record. 

Climenhaga noted that Yellowknife saw an extended stretch of extremely cold weather, with temperatures below -25C from December 11 until the end of the month, including more than 20 days at or below -30C.

“The length of this stretch was very long but not unprecedented,” she said.

(Yellowknife’s all-time record without wind chill is -51.2C, set in 1947. The territorial capital has not seen -50C since.)

Climenhaga noted Norman Wells has already recorded at least four separate days below -40C this winter, making it a very cold season to date compared to recent years. The same applies to much of the NWT, she said.

While January has started off very cold, Climenhaga said some moderation in temperatures is expected in the coming days.

In the South Slave, Hay River and Fort Smith – which were each at about -20C on Tuesday afternoon – are set to warm up to around -5C by the weekend.

Norman Wells has a weekend forecast high of -24C, while Inuvik can only expect to reach -32C.